Minimalist Tree Trunks

There's a tree on the dog walk that's been intriguing me for months. It looks like it's a candidate for a photo or two, but nothing had worked. I don't know why, perhaps it's the lie of the land making it difficult to get a good angle on it. But yesterday I turned the Sigma 105mm macro on it and saw a new, minimalist angle. And here's the result. Not so much a tree, more a matter of an abstract based on a tree. Two versions, first with trunks the right way up, then rotated through 90 degrees. Focus might seem a bit odd because the two trunks are at different distances and I was going for the edges of the distant trunk. Perhaps there are other possibilities to be explored.

So... what do you think? Worth exploring further? Vertical or horizontal? Wider slit between trunks? Slit to one side (as now) or down the middle? Focus on near points of trunks rather than edge? Give up on minimalism and try for the tree itself?

Over to you!

1. Vertical



2. Horizontal



Steve

It depends what you want to achieve, but my read on it would be to make the bark utterly sharp, so crisp that the very crispness makes the picture. That would imply a very sharp lens, a firm tripod and a small aperture to maximise depth of field. However, not too small an aperture lest we take the edge off that sharpness. Perhaps f/11, f/16 if the lens will stay good that far.

With the idea in hand I think a marginally wider slit would be better, for the not-so-obvious tree trunks to act as a bit of a frame. With the slit as thin as it is, it's too minimalistic (in my unprofessional opinion) to really understand any of it. That background, between the trunks, is teasing... which almost works here.

You might be able to achieve a bit more sharpness by stepping back and then cropping later on, it's the out of focus areas that make the image distracting. The idea is worth another try though, and I think the horizontal probably has more to it than the vertical.

Thanks for your thoughts, folks. Keep 'em coming!

A bit of background. The tree is on sloping ground, the path runs along the contour uphill of the tree. You can move uphill away from the tree or downhill towards the tree, but that changes your height relative to the tree. So if you're shooting horizontally to keep a length of trunk in focus, moving toward or away from the tree changes the bit of trunk in front of the lens. Or you can keep the same bit in front of the lens by changing the angle but some is then out of focus. An interesting challenge...

Steve