We all have a few personal things "on our plate" that must be dealt with. My plate was full, and though I usually escape town to avoid making decisions, in this case, I came to nature, asking her for help resolving my issues. I've always found a calm, nurturing refuge within nature. I think that's why I turned to landscape photography and have developed the personal philosophy that every image I make is a self-portrait. To me, this makes the entire process of photography very personal.
Cruising along a forest road at 15 MPH, I saw this ragged stand of scrub oak, passed, stopped, backed up, and worked. I spent 45 minutes committing myself to an image that I knew was lurking here. I faced the oaks with my 14-24mm Nikkor on my D850.
The initial composition was fine. The stand of oaks is backed by a dark row of pines with a band of blue sky above. Fine, but not enough. I recalled why I was there. I conversed with the stand of oaks until I sensed they were not "standing" at all; they were lunging at me, just like my issues of the day. Before me was my usual reluctance to engage in personal issues and let time take care of them. They were just disguised as trees. Determined not to retreat from myself and just drive away, I stepped into the "lunge" of oaks and soon had this composition.
A day after arriving home, I began to "resolve" my images, and, low and behold, my personal issues were also made clearer. Such a thing has never happened to me before, not like this. I did not plan on such an intense self-help-photo session this weekend, but it happened, and it helped! And I also like the images!
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Dimitri Vasileiou • Editor