Another location at Callaway Gardens we shot at was at Sibley Gardens. This is a marvelous place to shoot with so many options and besides the gardner, I was totally entranced with the blooming Cherry Trees. It started off shooting wide with the 14-24AFS but soon abandoned it and its perspective. Why? I wanted that oriental feel to the photo, what you might see in a painting but with that wide lens, while I got the sweep of the branches, there was simply to much other junk in the photo taking the eye away from that sweep. Had to go to plan B.
What was plan B? Go the opposite direction from wide, go long! I went with the Df / 300PF because it permitted isolating those elements of the Cherries I liked while excluding those elements I found distracting. What made it all work were the overcast skies. That flat light kept the blossoms from blowing out and use the natural topography of the trees to create lights and darks showing the shape of the tree. Good stuff. It was a fun challenge and turned out to be a great lesson for folks. And as it turned out, a couple of cool clicks I like enough to share with you. And for me to have a posey photo I want to share is saying something.
