Stunning dead tree on the Donnybrook-Boyup Brook Road
I am not too sure what why but there is something very photogenic about stark dead trees.
I spotted this tree on my recent trip to Bridgetown via Collie and Donnybrook. It was on the Donnybrook-Boyup Brook Road. I came around a left hand bend on a downgrade and I just caught a quick glimpse of it, but I knew I had to find somewhere to turn around and go back and take a few shots of it.
I often see really interesting dead trees but generally the background is busy with a farm house or other tree-lines. But this tree had a great clean background behind it. No power lines, no houses or sheds, no bushes or trees. Perfect.
Look how crisp the Sony-Zeiss f4 16-70mm lens has captured this spidery old tree. There is not a hint of purple fringing on the edges of the twiggy branches.
Although monochrome images seem to be all the rage at the moment I generally don't get into it much myself, but with this picture I decided to have a little play. While it is well known that colour pictures make the best monochrome images the problem is that there are just so many options when converting a colour image to monochrome. You have about 30 different blends in Lightroom to mix a monochrome image, then if you go to Photoshop you have another 30 or so different options, then you can always do-it-yourself with the sliders which give you a massive range of other options, and finally, if you want to spend a little more money, they are tens of plugs-ins for Photoshop that allow other monochrome options.
The effort above is a relatively basic attempt with the blue and green sliders just brought up a little bit from a basic de-saturation. Bit it looks okay; to me anyway.
Again, I just can't get over how crisp the Sony-Zeiss lens is. These pictures are hand-held at ISO400 from the middle of the road as I kept an eye out for cars coming from both directions.