Along Sourdough Trail

A surface such as water (or glass) provides a natural way to create a layered image. The partial reflection allows superposition of images from different sources, not otherwise achievable in camera. But why care about layers? In my last post I gave them credit for a “dreamy” or “contemplative” way to show more than one scene in a single image. But that’s not pushing it very far. What might be the significance of layering?

Any visual scene has multiple associations and interpretations, even for a single person. Multiple layers in an image can suggest this. They may also stimulate further reflection, prompted rather than inhibited by their indistinctness. The visual layering stands as analogy to the overlay of memories that might be connected, directly or indirectly, to a place.

The notion of layering is one I’ve come to recognize in quite a few of my images. It seems to apply when there are clearly separable zones of distance, and an obstruction of a back layer by a forward layer is prominent, forcing recognition of the zones. Zones may be distinguished also by focus. By way of experiment, the two images below of new aspen leaves have focus on the middle and forward layers, respectively, of an essentially three-layer scene.

I like both images. The first seems less conventional, with the blurred leaves literally in your face (imagining yourself at the camera position). The second may be more satisfying because it emphasizes the delicate detail in the “default” subject identified by its bright lighting, and softens out the messy detail elsewhere.

This type of layering can also function to convey multiple meanings. For example, here’s an idyllic opening in the woods, and you yourself are observing from back among the trees, perhaps even hiding yourself, perhaps waiting for …

The water has gone down, but some paths are still occupied by puddles or shallow streams, and the streams themselves are high, wide, and fast. I saw a duck trying to make its way upstream along the edge; it finally gave up, moved out from the bank, and shot downstream.

Though a problem for travel, the water is a photographic boon. In the previous post I showed a few photographs with varying location of the plane of focus relative to the surface of the water. This morning I carried out the experiment more systematically, changing only focal distance for a fixed camera position and aperture (f/9). In the sequence below, focus is at the puddle, at some nearby branches (as reflected), and at the far trees. This would best be presented as a slideshow; relationships among image elements would be more clear with in-place transitions. I’m currently looking into ways to provide that, and hope to update this post when I’ve learned how.

One thing has become more clear to me after today’s outing. I realized that what I find appealing about these images goes deeper than spooky focus play or surrealistic texture overlays. It’s the ability to superimpose layers that could be considered different worlds. Despite their proximity, the grass growing above the puddle, the dead leaves lying underwater, the low growth hovering nearby, and the high canopy beyond are in different microenvironments having quite different character. True, a simple wide-angle shot, aimed horizontally rather than downward, could take everything in and show it all at once in sharp detail. But juxtaposing rather than layering alters the effect altogether. The dreamy feeling might be entirely lost, and with it the drifting, contemplative mood I was in.