Suffolk gallery: summer tree

Sometimes us photographers just get lucky. The vast majority of professional photographers, of

course, are dedicated to the job they love and are skilled in, not requiring luck to get the

picture. Others will wait hours, primed like a hair trigger, for the perfect shot. There's an element

of serendipity in much published photography, though not everyone admits it. Where the

papparazzo relies on luck as well as skill for his dinner and the wildlife photographer needs an

element of luck in his pursuit of that snow leopard, etc. the war photographer needs luck just to

not get killed (too many are). But us lesser mortals will get a buzz when an off-the-cuff picture

comes out well, or... lucky. On leaving the venue for the Sheepdog Trials there was a gap in

the crowd wandering over Haughley Park just as I was passing a beautiful row of silver birches. I

thought I saw a picture there, of the tall trees and their shadows making the sort of natural

pattern I particularly like. But in the edit later, the picture just wouldn’t resolve into a good

composition. Either I should have got closer and made more of the verticals, or further back for

a long shot, but the exiting crowds would’ve made that difficult. I was rescued by a crop that

eliminated the birches completely in favour of a lone tree off to the right. The subsequent loss

of resolution was disguised by a little diffusion and by introducing some creative elements that

heightened the sense of ‘summer’. The picture happily split itself into the legendary ‘thirds’

horizontally with the tree-trunk dead centre vertically.

Sometimes us photographers just get lucky. The vast majority of professional photographers, of

course, are dedicated to the job they love and are skilled in, not requiring luck to get the picture.

Others will wait hours, primed like a hair trigger, for the perfect shot. There's an element of

serendipity in much published photography, though not everyone admits it. Where the papparazzo

relies on luck as well as skill for his dinner and the wildlife photographer needs an element of luck in his

pursuit of that snow leopard, etc. the war photographer needs luck just to not get killed (too many

are). But us lesser mortals will get a buzz when an off-the-cuff picture comes out well, or... lucky. On

leaving the venue for the Sheepdog Trials there was a gap in the crowd wandering over Haughley

Park just as I was passing a beautiful row of silver birches. I thought I saw a picture there, of the tall

trees and their shadows making the sort of natural pattern I particularly like. But in the edit later, the

picture just wouldn’t resolve into a good composition. Either I should have got closer and made more

of the verticals, or further back for a long shot, but the exiting crowds would’ve made that difficult. I

was rescued by a crop that eliminated the birches completely in favour of a lone tree off to the right.

The subsequent loss of resolution was disguised by a little diffusion and by introducing some creative

elements that heightened the sense of ‘summer’. The picture happily split itself into the legendary

‘thirds’ horizontally with the tree-trunk dead centre vertically.

Summer tree