michael walters photography

The Lone Oak, originally uploaded by Michael Walters.

I love to photograph trees. During my commute to work this lone oak tree always grabs my attention. I have always considered stopping, setting up the tripod, composing the perfect image for a corporate brochure that has been taken 10, 000 times already.

But then I realized that is not the way I see the tree. The colors are never vibrant blues and greens of grass and sky. The clouds are never the perfect shape to compliment the tree. I waited for months for the perfect image. Then I realized what I was really seeing. Every morning and evening I would see the drab colors of the dying grass, the almost black foliage of the tree, and a sky that was invariably monotone.

But the tree continued to grab my attention. So I began to just shoot the tree with camera at arms length while driving by at 65 mph. Using a technique I learned from Michael Long, I would guess at the exposure and composition. After all, wasn’t that how I was seeing the tree?

For months I would just glance over and hope for the imagined scene. It was never there. After just a few days I had captured the image I was seeing.