Photography News issue 18

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IN ASSOCIATION WITH

MASTERCLASS: TREES David Noton It’s the final instalment in our series of masterclasses withDavidNoton, and to finish on a highwe get David’s expert advice on how to photograph one of themost popular subjects in landscape photography: trees

David’s top tips

A GENTLE BREEZE “Using movement is very powerful. If you’ve got a wind blowing, the branches will express this motion whilst the trunks remain strong, sharp, graphic shapes.” STILL AND STEADY “Generally speaking, you’d be working on a tripod, particularly if you’re going to use the movement of the trees blowing in the wind. In the woods it gets quite dark and exposures tend to be much longer because of the lack of light, particularly in the summer when the trees are full. A tripod is a must in those situations.” INTO THEWOODS “When you walk into the woods, to use that old cliché, sometimes you can’t see the woods for the trees. It takes a while to really zone your eye in to what the possibilities are in the woods, but that’s a very fun challenge to do; to go into the woods and then walk out after several hours having produced an interesting picture.”

One of the most universally accessible, and certainly one of the most diverse subjects for any photographer to explore has to be trees. Being both a landscape and a travel photographer himself, David Noton’s photos feature more than a few trees, but what’s the key to doing such grand subjects justice? Trees can often be captured as a by-product of shooting outdoors, not really the main feature of a photograph but still adding interest, perhaps in the background, but those kind of shots don’t celebrate the breadth of photographic options that can be explored when you choose to make trees your focus. “I think trees can serve all sorts of different purposes within pictures,” David begins. “They can give scale: for example, a mountain on its own will look like rock and ice. A distant peak is difficult to give any kind of scale to, but a tree dwarfed by the size of a mountain rising above it will serve to emphasise that scale.”

In thewoods it gets quite dark and exposures tend to bemuch longer because of the lack of light. A tripod is amust in those situations

most challenging locations in which to achieve a first-class shot. “Woods and forests are very difficult to shoot in because of contrast,” David explains. “The best lighting situation is very flat, low‑contrast light, the opposite of what we normally look for in landscape photography.” Although it may take time for your eye to adjust to the environment and pick out photo-worthy compositions, spending time doing so can be rewarding. Shooting on his Canon EOS 5D Mark III, David finds that he often uses the live view LCD screen when photographing this kind of subject. “I find live view really useful for double‑checking my composition after I’ve composed a frame through the eyepiece,” he says. In terms of lenses, the choice is huge: from a wide-angle lens, such as the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM (pictured left), to a short telephoto like the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, which is ideal for homing in on details like tree roots.

It’s not just in epic landscapes that trees can be captured creatively. Even right up close there are plenty of inspirational shots to be had, as David found when he was last in Sequoia National Park in California, home to some of the biggest trees in the world. “Trying to show the scale of those trees was very difficult photographically, because you move backwards to get it all in and they just soar skyward,” he recalls. “I just photographed up close, showing the girth of their trunks, which goes a long way to suggesting the vast size of the trees themselves.” One of the most obvious places to shoot trees is most likely the woods, but it is actually one of the

π To find out more, go to www.davidnoton.com.

ABOVE LEFT Aspen trees in the snow near Muleshoe, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. ABOVE RIGHT The Canal du Midi near Castelnaudary, Languedoc-Roussillon, France. RIGHT The autumn colouring of a tree blowing in the Mistral wind, Pays Du Gard, Languedoc, France.

Watch and learn For more tips, David’s DVD Photography in the Raw offers practical

advice on all kinds of subjects, from how to read the light to how to capture the best picture in any situation. Copies can be purchased from his website, at prices starting from £24 and going up to £32.40 for a Full HD edition.

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Photography News | Issue 18

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