Story behind the image
I stumbled over this incredible subject when I was on a morning walk together with my wife in a forest 10 miles from our home in northern Zealand, Denmark. Naturally, I got really excited about it but unfortunately did not have my camera with me.
The pattern that forms the image was located on the end of a piece of wood cut from the trunk of a fallen tree. This meant that it might likely disappear within hours or days as part of cleaning away this tree that had been cut down due to storm damage.
My excitement for the potential image was so great, and my fear of loosing the opportunity so significant, that I rushed back home to get my camera and load film in my sheet film holders. I was back photographing in the early afternoon before the light had totally faded and made this marvelous image.
At times, photography is about grabbing the opportunity while it is there and putting in the effort to make it happen. I have definitely missed the opportunity a number of times by not returning to a subject quickly enough with a camera. In these cases the subject would either be gone or so changed that it did no longer work as an image. I am very happy that I reacted swiftly with the subject used for this image.
The photograph was made under an overcast sky and the subject itself was of quite low contrast so a proof print of this image looks pretty dull. The image requires substantial image processing to gain vitality and achieve balance between all the various areas. A step by step explanation of the image processing for this image can be viewed by clicking here.
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