California is home to some of the largest trees on Earth. The redwoods in Walker Grove, in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, located just south of the California–Oregon state border, are no exception. As a young man (50 years ago), I worked in the logging industry and witnessed enormous old-growth redwood trees being cut down firsthand. That experience fueled my love for old-growth forests, and I am grateful that these wooden treasures are now protected. Instead of helping to cut down the trees, I can now preserve them through my camera, hopefully helping people who see my work to be awed by the incredible size and majesty of life that is literally thousands of years old.
The day this photo was taken, I was walking through Walker Grove with my best friend from college. He walked ahead of me on the trail since I was stopping frequently to take photos. As I studied the scene in front of me, I recognized that the trail provided a sense of scale that emphasized how small we humans are compared to such giants. I couldn’t help but let my jaw drop as I stood in awe of the size of these living things.
That day, hazy sunlight filtered through the forest canopy and lit the side of one massive trunk, leading my eyes to the big tree in front of me. Sunlight in a forest can be difficult to manage, but here it helped define the subject well. While I did use a tripod to take this photo, a breeze moved the foliage enough that I needed a relatively fast shutter speed and a higher ISO setting to keep the image sharp.
