Quick Shot: Dali's Tree
"Of all the subjects in the world to photograph, why choose this one?"
It's a great question..... what makes this subject worth photographing at the moment of capture? In this case, the motivation to make the print was because my subject reminded me of one of my favorite painters, Salvador Dali. While it would be ta stretch to say any of my photographs are "Dali-esq", this tree with its twisted and mutilated shape reminded me of the sort of tree Dali would imagine and dream up.
We were walking along a trail in the Lake District on our last morning before heading home. I had just switched to a new type of 35mm film that is made in Germany called Adox Silvermax. The film has more silver content than most films and the manufacturer claims it can get up to 14 stops of dynamic range..... to put that into perspective, my digital camera gets about half of that!
I really liked this tree. It's warped from years of abuse by the wind and the morning light cast a nice glow on the surrounding grasses. Using my Leica MP and a 75mm lens, I composed and took the photograph, deciding that at that instant, this was the best subject in the world to photograph.
When I look at the negative (which I developed using Kodak HC-110 - same stuff Ansel Adams loved) and the scanned image, I can't help but think of the works of Salvador Dali. What do you think?