I’ve been looking at this image periodically for two months now. I’ve been tweaking and messing about with it, to a sense of lingering dissatisfaction. Eventually, I’ve had to admit to myself that the photograph simply does not do a good job of capturing what it is that I find compelling about it.
I wonder if, given the lighting conditions and the circumstances, I could have made a photograph that would have been satisfactory. I’m not at all sure. There may just not have been a good combination of position, aperture, and lens to do what I wanted with it. I want the viewer to see the wrinkled, almost mammalian surface, the organic flow of this fallen log’s surface, and be reminded of her own skin in all of its vulnerability and beauty.
So I’ve wound up processing this image quite heavily, and even resorting to selective color, which really seems a last-ditch tactic. But no amount of cropping or straight-up black & white was giving me the kind of separation and control of focus that I wanted. The version I have now really is best at the Gallery size, or larger.
Just to pull back the curtain for you a bit, here’s what the unprocessed image out of the camera looks like. I’d be fascinated to know what you other photography-folks out there might have chosen to do with this picture. Any ideas?
