The Forest Window
Soft rainfall made its way through the canopy, catching leaves in splashes as it went before reaching the damp brown earth at my feet. Above, birdsong rang across the glade, while the River Pattack charged down through the gorge behind me, all brown swirls and rampant eddies. As I stood on the patch of raised ground, I saw a shot I thought might work. A pair of Spruce trees filled the window in front of me, standing out from the forest background like non-identical twins. No mist or fog about, but hopefully there was enough drizzle and grunge in the air to carve an image from.
This stretch of peaceful landscape had been something of an unexpected bonus as we began the first stage of our long journey back from Inverness. At the eastern end of the road lay the Cairngorm Mountains, which we’d passed earlier. Now we were gradually heading towards Ben Nevis and its friends, passing through pristine scenery. We’d crossed the Spey, premium single malt country, and now we were approaching the Pattack and the banks of Loch Laggan, at the other end of which the river curiously loses its identity and becomes the River Spean. We’d already pinpointed the forest on the map, quite casually before leaving Inverness, and decided it seemed as good a place as any to break for lunch. From here, another hour to our next base at Glencoe, although we both knew it would take longer than that with so many distractions lying in wait.
The main draw had been the waterfall I’d seen on Google Maps. It wasn’t one of the more famous ones in these islands, but cutting through a handsome slate grey gorge, it was worth taking a look, and there had already been a pleasing bonus in discovering that there was more than one location from which to capture all that water chasing along it. I thought I was done and ready to continue the journey through this gorgeous highland corridor when, as I began to wander back down the slope towards the van, the view of the spruces appeared before me. Perfect natural forest scenery without a plantation in sight. But could I get enough separation to show off the pair against the background?
It’s one of those images which barely made it off the bottom of the pile for quite a long time, because I was struggling with that precise element. Whatever I did, the trees either remained relatively indistinct from their surroundings, or attempts to work on them separately as objects proved to be rather fuzzy around the edges. More than once the entire process needed a fresh start as I wondered whether it was really worth it. Even if I did manage to resolve it, I wasn’t going to be winning any awards. Just a picture that would capture what I experienced on that damp afternoon in the forest. That was all I really wanted. I got to a point where I was reasonably satisfied with the result, but it wasn’t an image that I felt was going any further than my desktop.
Roll forward a few months and one Sunday morning as I looked at my YouTube feed, I found a video that had enough similarities to suggest a solution. A change of profile, some trial and error with the blue sliders and the improvement came relatively easily. Now the trees stood out cleanly from the greens around them. Some people can read the manuals on this stuff and understand it, but there are others like me who have to see it being done before the penny drops. And although I have started to lean more towards a few of the smaller YouTube channels and moved away from most of the big hitters, occasionally one of the latter throws out a golden nugget that can help unlock a problem, such as the woodland chaos around me here.
I’m glad I didn’t simply jettison the raw files in disgust. You never know when the answers that will solve a conundrum might appear. In this case it was just a few months later, but sometimes it can be years before you chance across something new and wonder whether it might be the answer to a shot you couldn’t get a tune out of at the time you took it. Fresh eyes on old images. Always worth keeping those problem pictures close at hand. Now, this one at last takes me back to the moment, and that’s all I was ever really hoping for.
The Forest Window
Soft rainfall made its way through the canopy, catching leaves in splashes as it went before reaching the damp brown earth at my feet. Above, birdsong rang across the glade, while the River Pattack charged down through the gorge behind me, all brown swirls and rampant eddies. As I stood on the patch of raised ground, I saw a shot I thought might work. A pair of Spruce trees filled the window in front of me, standing out from the forest background like non-identical twins. No mist or fog about, but hopefully there was enough drizzle and grunge in the air to carve an image from.
This stretch of peaceful landscape had been something of an unexpected bonus as we began the first stage of our long journey back from Inverness. At the eastern end of the road lay the Cairngorm Mountains, which we’d passed earlier. Now we were gradually heading towards Ben Nevis and its friends, passing through pristine scenery. We’d crossed the Spey, premium single malt country, and now we were approaching the Pattack and the banks of Loch Laggan, at the other end of which the river curiously loses its identity and becomes the River Spean. We’d already pinpointed the forest on the map, quite casually before leaving Inverness, and decided it seemed as good a place as any to break for lunch. From here, another hour to our next base at Glencoe, although we both knew it would take longer than that with so many distractions lying in wait.
The main draw had been the waterfall I’d seen on Google Maps. It wasn’t one of the more famous ones in these islands, but cutting through a handsome slate grey gorge, it was worth taking a look, and there had already been a pleasing bonus in discovering that there was more than one location from which to capture all that water chasing along it. I thought I was done and ready to continue the journey through this gorgeous highland corridor when, as I began to wander back down the slope towards the van, the view of the spruces appeared before me. Perfect natural forest scenery without a plantation in sight. But could I get enough separation to show off the pair against the background?
It’s one of those images which barely made it off the bottom of the pile for quite a long time, because I was struggling with that precise element. Whatever I did, the trees either remained relatively indistinct from their surroundings, or attempts to work on them separately as objects proved to be rather fuzzy around the edges. More than once the entire process needed a fresh start as I wondered whether it was really worth it. Even if I did manage to resolve it, I wasn’t going to be winning any awards. Just a picture that would capture what I experienced on that damp afternoon in the forest. That was all I really wanted. I got to a point where I was reasonably satisfied with the result, but it wasn’t an image that I felt was going any further than my desktop.
Roll forward a few months and one Sunday morning as I looked at my YouTube feed, I found a video that had enough similarities to suggest a solution. A change of profile, some trial and error with the blue sliders and the improvement came relatively easily. Now the trees stood out cleanly from the greens around them. Some people can read the manuals on this stuff and understand it, but there are others like me who have to see it being done before the penny drops. And although I have started to lean more towards a few of the smaller YouTube channels and moved away from most of the big hitters, occasionally one of the latter throws out a golden nugget that can help unlock a problem, such as the woodland chaos around me here.
I’m glad I didn’t simply jettison the raw files in disgust. You never know when the answers that will solve a conundrum might appear. In this case it was just a few months later, but sometimes it can be years before you chance across something new and wonder whether it might be the answer to a shot you couldn’t get a tune out of at the time you took it. Fresh eyes on old images. Always worth keeping those problem pictures close at hand. Now, this one at last takes me back to the moment, and that’s all I was ever really hoping for.