Swamp Cypress 07, Natchez Trace Parkway, Mississippi

The bottoms of the trees are apparently called "cypress knees". Whatever they're called, they're rather cool to look at. Should I have left out the tree in the foreground right? The trees are so close that I couldn't really move the camera left or right without having another tree interrupt my composition..... What are your thoughts?

Any comments or ratings are appreciated! :-)

Lou Ann, The tree on the right does a fine job of balancing the shot. As a matter of fact I'd like to see more of it; including all of it's 'cypress knee'. As for cropping, I'm of the opinion that the image should define the crop, not the other way around. I mean that we needn't try to fit every shot into conventional ratios, 5x7, 8x10, etc. If the shot calls for a 7x10 crop then that's what it should be. Matte & frame it accordingly. This one could use a little colour balancing too, magenta seems to have taken over; add some green. Geeze, in a place like this I'd be looking over my shoulder often, spooky! Best, LM.

i like the tree in the foreground. i would crop out some of the sky though. i find swamps very challening to photograph. fyi the base of the tree is not actually the knee. the knees are the little bumpy looking things that come up around the base of the tree. i believe they are actually part of the root system. they both help support the tree and give it more air surface. see my attached image

Thanks, both of you ....

 

Len - yeah, magenta. The originals from the swamp series were all super-overly green, and my eye isn't very good at finding the "right" balance. There's lots of room here for tweaking, though. I appreciate your thoughts on letting the shot define the crop. I will keep that in mind. :-)

 

Linda - thanks for that clarification. The website I looked at said something about the root system ... I thought it meant that the bottom of the tree that looks like roots are the knees. Let me tell you ... I am looking forward to going back there someday and spending a lot of time shooting. (But I'll have to bathe in bug-repellent first!)