This is a very special photo to me. Trees inspire me much respect, especially old and venerable ones: they witnessed the past, and will probably see a far future, unlike me.
This particular tree is a legend by himself. He even has a name: Ponthus' beech. He lives in the Brocéliande forest, in Bretagne (France), the one where many Arthurian legends occurred. One can also find Merlin's tomb here (well, at least one of them...). Different stories exist, but a common one is that Ponthus, a knight of the round table, lived in a castle there, somewhere around the 10th century. He was disappointed by the fact he had no child, and blasphemed about it. God punished him by destroying his castle in a storm, and the tree grew on its ruins.
While this tree is well known (he illustrates several photography books' covers), finding it is quite hard. Technically, he is located in a private part of the forest, theoretically forbidden to walkers. This is probably why very few information is available about his location. A long documentary research gave me several possibilities, which I entered as coordinates in a GPS device.
I then had to drive about 5h to reach the forest, and park on its side. This place is gigantic, and I met absolutely nobody. It was a fantastic experience to wander alone in these woods, exploring the locations possibilities in the hope of finding the mythical tree. I was quite lucky, and after only an hour of walk I was standing in front of it. I may be an emotional guy, but believe me, I was simply overwhelmed by the beauty of his shapes, the moss covering most of his trunk, and by the fact that he was the very only one of his kind (all the other trees in the area were straight, as you can see on the photo). I spent about 3h shooting it carefully, testing many angles, 3 different lenses, and waiting for the right light. Since the place was quite dark, I decided to use bracketing, which was extremely useful in post-processing to raise the dynamic range.
I really hope I will be able to go there many times again, and photography it at different seasons. It is quite a long day (mainly spent on the road), but it was so worth it. Did I mention I love this tree? :-)
ETA: Thanks all! I'm so glad this one won. If you would like to see a bigger version of the photo, you can do so here.
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 127 Avg (all users): 7.7656 Avg (commenters): 8.8400 Avg (participants): 7.5472 Avg (non-participants): 7.9200 Views since voting: 19521 Views during voting: 314 Votes: 128 Comments: 87 Favorites: 69 (view)
Just saw this image going around facebook - nothing you can really do about it, I suppose - except enjoy the fact that so many people appreciate the image. :)
Yes, it has taken this long for me to come back to comment on this piece. It resonated strongly with me before while in the voting stage and the imagery of this great and majestic tree has stayed with me than I can no longer resist the call to come back and tell you how beautiful it is and finally fav it (one of two of your works. And yes, I am very picky with what I fav too if you couldn't tell:-) ) I will admit I did have a slight envy that you were able to stand before this tree and experience it's majestic beauty (but that has passed). The beauty of this place and the tree just wraps around you to envelop one with the quiet calm of forest serenity and mysticism - this is a place either physically or just visually where one can come to seek tranquillity when life gets hectic.
This looks almost like a root. Either way it's pointing magnificently toward its' life sustaining energy source sunlight. Good to include its' huge "knuckles" and "feet".
I love trees, too. And other things. My surname name translated from Hungarian means "From the edge of the forest". "Erdo" = forest and "végi" = from the edge of. One of my early shootings was a 200 year old oak tree. Like the name, since I was born in April.
As for the unprocessed versions, no sorry, I usually don't show them. I don't like the opposition that some tend to make between "pure photography" and "post-processing": consequently, I don't want to provide originals that would be used as (so called) "evidences" by one side or another.
I consider the whole thing (imagination, sketches, hardware preparations & logistics, setup, lighting, shooting, raw conversion, post-processing, quality check) as a process aimed at delivering a final product. Isolating one element or another would alter the way the image is perceived, in my opinion. This is also why I don't shoot "making of" photos.
I see your point. Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to make an opposition between photography and processing, I completely agree that they are both important for the end result. However, I am quite mediocre in both categories but try to learn from examples of others' "making of"s, before and afters. I fully respect your decision to keep this to yourself though, as giving it out might indeed "pull away the curtain" and take away some of the magic from the photos.
I nabbed a high-res version of this picture from your flickr feed to use as my new desktop background by the way... Now I'm forced to maintain a clean desktop not to clutter this masterpiece :)
Fantastic photo! I love your pics, and think you are an amazing photographer as well as being incredibly skilled with post-processing. Have you considered posting some of the unprocessed originals for your entries? I would love to see how some of your shots look straight out of the camera.
Thanks a lot for your comment!
As for the unprocessed versions, no sorry, I usually don't show them. I don't like the opposition that some tend to make between "pure photography" and "post-processing": consequently, I don't want to provide originals that would be used as (so called) "evidences" by one side or another.
I consider the whole thing (imagination, sketches, hardware preparations & logistics, setup, lighting, shooting, raw conversion, post-processing, quality check) as a process aimed at delivering a final product. Isolating one element or another would alter the way the image is perceived, in my opinion. This is also why I don't shoot "making of" photos.
Fantastic photo! I love your pics, and think you are an amazing photographer as well as being incredibly skilled with post-processing. Have you considered posting some of the unprocessed originals for your entries? I would love to see how some of your shots look straight out of the camera.
This is not just a beautiful tree, but a stunning image of it. I was intrigued by your photo and description of the tree, so I googled "Ponthus' beech" and looked at many other photographer's attempts to capture its beauty. There were many great shots of it, but I certainly found none better than yours. Congratulations on the blue ribbon.
What an absolutely incredible tree, Christophe, and the story you spun to go with it is no less inspiring. Great capture, congrats on the blue (dang! where's that stamp when you need it?!) and aw jeez now we have to watch out for your nature/wide-angle stuff too! AAAHHHHH! ;-0
It is so very difficult to capture the awesomeness of nature, to be able to impart its grandeur in a small square of colors. But that is what you have done here, Christophe. Congrats on your ribbon. It would be annoying that you're always winning, except that you put so much effort into everything you do, that instead, it's an inspiration.
You are truly amazing. This shot is so incredibly beautiful. I love the idea of studying it for 3 hours. You've inspired me to work more with each shot. Too many times I take the shot that's in my mind, and don't mix it up enough.
Wonderful image and a wonderful story to go ith it. Excellent work, Christophe and many congrats on your blue ribbon. Can't understand the "1" vote....
Christophe, I had NO idea you could look like a tree at will :-)
But seriously, I actually respect this more than practically all of your fine images. What a wonderful rendering, what a fine story! Congrats on your best-deserved (in my book) blue!
Wow! I am so impressed with the amount of work you put into this. It's amazing. You show that photographing beauty, to you, is a real passion. Absolutely incredible and such a well deserved ribbon!
Wow, you did it again! Thanks for all the notes. Even something as apparently common as a tree, you put lots of research and effort into. (Not a common tree at all, though!) No wonder you keep pulling the ribbons. We'll see this on 1x next week, I'm sure.
April
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