The pier and the lonely tree

Every self respecting photographer has to have a pier photo in his/her portfolio. While exploring during one of my last outings, I headed towards Seehamer lake exactly with this purpose in mind. To find a suitable pier, photograph it, turn the photo into B&W and thus complete my portfolio and feel like an accomplished photographer.

This was the same day that I took the photos of my last post, so if you check that out you will see that it was a brilliant day with just a little fog. In fact the lake was no more than 5 Km away from the spot I took the photos in that post. You should hence imagine my surprise, when I went there and found a fog so thick that I could barely find the lake. I got out of the car, went to the lake shore and could just see “white” and about 4 meters of water. I could hear some ducks nearby – I suppose they were ducks, but they could equally be albatross, eagles or parrots on vacation imposing as ducks – but never saw them and so missed a photo opportunity.

Disheartened, I gave up, wend back in the car and drove around the lake. A few minutes later my legendary luck (no, not really) worked its magic and the fog thinned just a little. Moreover, there it was, conveniently situated, a pier just on the side of the road with a nice bench right next to it, waiting for me to place my gear bag. I parked the car, set up the tripod and voila! My own pier photo:

Somehow I felt more accomplished just by pushing the shutter release button.

The very observative among you will notice the small black dots in the middle of the frame. Those are the ducks (other than the ones I heard at the other side of the lake). I did process this photo a bit, mainly to remove some poles towards the deep end of the pier, but other than that, not a lot.

I am sure at this point you are all wondering, where the lonely tree is and what does it have to do with the pier. Well, the only connection is that I took that photo on the same day, a couple of hours earlier, just before sunrise. Other than that … I didn’t think the pier by itself would cut it for this post. So without further delay:

So peaceful, just the best time of the day if you can motivate yourself to get out of bed.

This was in fact the first photo of that day. I have taken five exposures, but only three were necessary for the final picture. The fog in the middle as well as the blur in the foreground were added during post processing. I am struggling a bit with the luminosity of my monitor at the moment, which may be a bit too high making some photos appear darker than intended in other peoples’ screens. If you feel like it, push up the luminosity on your screen a bit to check the photo out. If you really feel like it, please drop me a comment with your impression. In my screen the foreground tree is not supposed to be pitch black.

My next post will be from somewhere far away from Bavaria with a completely different mood. Till then, have fun!

 

© 2014 Epameinondas Stamos