Old Aspen Trunk
Colorado

33×13″ prints are $1,500
50×20″ prints are $3,000

In 2006 Ruth and I went on another cross country photo trip with a brief stop in Utah and then on to the Kebler Pass area of Colorado. The day was heavily overcast with the type of lighting which made the golden aspen leaves look flat and drab. It appeared to be a dud after-noon photography wise.

However I found this large aspen tree with a trunk which was about 24” in diameter and had one section that was visually very interesting. The diffused light was perfect for photo-graphing the trunk with its bold patterns and “eyes” and light brown trunk. I carefully focused the view camera using the rising front and a little bit of back tilt. I used a 600mm lens at f/32-5/6 for a one second exposure on Velvia 50 film. While Velvia film is known for having saturated deep colors it also reproduces pastel values without exaggerating them.

The 20×50” Cibachrome print of this image is close to life size and has quite an abstract al-most non-photographic look to it. When examined closely you can see the buckskin like tex-ture of the trunk and the fine details. It’s clearly a photograph but from a distance it looks as though it could be a finely crafted serigraph or painting.