Trees, Women, Skin Color Experiment

mdvaden · September 13, 2011

Got a whim to try something different lately ... photographing "people" among the redwoods. Not just the redwoods with small people for size comparison, but portrait stuff, or shots more close-up. I may hire a model from Eureka, California, but meanwhile, don't know what poses may look best. So I hired a professional model (light blonde) this week, to go to the Columbia River Gorge 1/2 hour east of Portland here, and practice poses in general.

Even the photographs with no trees are teachable. I'll post two photos first, showing the Vista House and the redwood Screaming Titans. What they both have in common is shape. Wider at the base, somewhat huge, and taper toward the top. Most photographs in my collection have men. And most redwood photographs have caucasian people. So I'd like to include a few dark skin folks in future photographs too, maybe even native American Indian. A few weeks ago, my daughter (30s) helped for step one, as we looked for a few spots in the redwoods for natural backdrops: logs, boulders, water, stumps, bridges, etc..

mdvaden · September 13, 2011

Daughter at Prairie Creek

mdvaden · September 13, 2011

Man and woman from a town 10 minutes from my home, who I met at Boy Scout Tree Trail trailhead: Jedediah Smith Redwoods. The black woman is at the same area, she was with a group of 4 other hikers, all light skinned.

mdvaden · September 13, 2011

Few more of the model, locally, and the posing experiment.

Again, the idea is applying various poses to trunks, stumps, logs, etc., at the coast redwoods. Or locally too I suppose. But the redwoods was the inspiration for this tangent.