Variations on a Theme

For the first time in a long time I went out yesterday with a mission to shoot one particular image.

I'd been over at Winkworth Arboretum a few weeks ago and had seen this partially submerged tree. I liked the contrast of the fractal/skeletal limbs in the water but, I was traveling light with no tripod or camera bag to speak of. So I took a quick record shot to remind me to get back over there with the right gear.

My initial intention yesterday was to shoot this as medium format black and white, but a quick scramble down and around the bank revealed that the 45mm lens on my Pentax6x7 was too wide for wha I had in mind. And, the original plan to shoot from close to the water level was including way too much of the other bank in the shot.

Instead I opted for the digital option and set my tripod up almost on the path to get a vantage point that didn't include either the far bank or local vegetation. I also added a polarizer, a 0.6ND filter and a 0.9 Grey Grad to allow more control over the motion of the water.

At this point I was still planning to process the images as B&W, and that was the first approach when I got back:

However when I tried a colour treatment things seem to work a little better. Using an old Lightroom trick of upping the Vibrance and dropping the Saturation gave slightly more dramatic image, that was still almost mono-chrome in appearance.

Overall I'm quite happy with it, and, it's not your average Winkworth shot of tree and/or flowers (Of which I'm guilty myself ;)