Pacific Madrone (Arbutus menziesii)

Pacific madrone, shot from Eagle's Rest, a smallish mountain about 35

minutes southeast of Eugene. I was drawn to photograph this by the

general comeliness of the madrone tree, but what got my attention was

the amount of texture throughout the whole frame. It's busy

everywhere, which to these eyes makes the presentation of the madrone

more intense. This is something Eliot Porter did in a lot of his

photographs, and I've been trying to plagiarize the idea since I first

saw his work.

Beautiful specimen. Did you use a polarizer on this? I personally don't like using them, but they are useful at times to cut down glare on leaves and help colors saturate a little more.

I don't remember whether I used a polarizer or not. Probably not, since I often forget this as an option for foliage. Reducing foliage glare isn't always what you want, anyway, even if it does bring out a bit more color. The absence of specular highlights can tend to flatten an image. I think it might have actually worked against the image here: without any visible glare on the madrone leaves, I suspect they'd disappear into the background detail a bit more than I'd like. Still, it's a good choice sometimes, and I ought to remember it more often.

John,

 

Understood. Seems as though smaller formats benefit more, imho, from polarizer use than larger, so I often don't use one myself. Good point about the possibility of loosing the leaves into the background, I didn't think of that.

 

Thanks for the comment on my image, too. (No polarizer on that one :-) )