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Description
Along the Milwaukee River; Milwaukee, Wi.

I'm entering this in the "Your Best Photo of 2014" contest at ThemedGroup (themedgroup.deviantart.com ). The contest journal: www.deviantart.com/journal/UPD…

As to why I chose this photo, let me start by explaining how I came to take it. There are trails along the Milwaukee River, snaking through the heart of the city, that I've been walking for 25 years. One day in early fall, walking one of those trails, I came across a little section of river that caught my eye. There were a couple fallen trees that reached out over the water and enclosed a little sheltered, shaded nook.

I knew there was material for a good picture here; the question was where to take it from. There was brush between the trail and the river, which obscured the easiest angles; the only way to avoid the brush was to take the picture from along the shoreline. From those angles, though, the fallen trees themselves would take up most of the picture.

After studying the scene for a minute, I decided to try taking the photo from underneath one of the two fallen tree trunks, cutting it out of the picture entirely. This meant stepping off the trail to the shoreline, leaning up against the tree, squatting down, and holding my camera underneath the trunk at calf-height. I couldn't look through the viewer that way, so I took the photo blind. But I got exactly the photo I wanted.

The viewer doesn't evaluate or react to a photo the same way as the photographer. Everyone has their own aesthetic sensibilities to judge by, but the photographer also knows the circumstances behind the photos. Consider Rock Garden (corsacphoto.deviantart.com/art… ), one of the most-faved photos in my gallery. It was taken at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison; a beautiful place by design. Anyone walking through those gardens might easily take the same exact picture; probably many people have. It doesn't display my personal vision and sensibilities the way Protected- a photo which might not have been taken by anyone else, even if they were walking the same trails- does.

And it doesn't necessarily mean that Rock Garden is a worse photo. But, looking through my galleries, there are photos that I take more pride in than others; because they weren't easy and obvious, and because there's more of myself in them. Protected is one of those; and it happens to be a beautiful picture, too. I say it's my best of 2014.

Description
Along the Milwaukee River; Milwaukee, Wi.

I'm entering this in the "Your Best Photo of 2014" contest at ThemedGroup (themedgroup.deviantart.com ). The contest journal: www.deviantart.com/journal/UPD…

As to why I chose this photo, let me start by explaining how I came to take it. There are trails along the Milwaukee River, snaking through the heart of the city, that I've been walking for 25 years. One day in early fall, walking one of those trails, I came across a little section of river that caught my eye. There were a couple fallen trees that reached out over the water and enclosed a little sheltered, shaded nook.

I knew there was material for a good picture here; the question was where to take it from. There was brush between the trail and the river, which obscured the easiest angles; the only way to avoid the brush was to take the picture from along the shoreline. From those angles, though, the fallen trees themselves would take up most of the picture.

After studying the scene for a minute, I decided to try taking the photo from underneath one of the two fallen tree trunks, cutting it out of the picture entirely. This meant stepping off the trail to the shoreline, leaning up against the tree, squatting down, and holding my camera underneath the trunk at calf-height. I couldn't look through the viewer that way, so I took the photo blind. But I got exactly the photo I wanted.

The viewer doesn't evaluate or react to a photo the same way as the photographer. Everyone has their own aesthetic sensibilities to judge by, but the photographer also knows the circumstances behind the photos. Consider Rock Garden (corsacphoto.deviantart.com/art… ), one of the most-faved photos in my gallery. It was taken at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison; a beautiful place by design. Anyone walking through those gardens might easily take the same exact picture; probably many people have. It doesn't display my personal vision and sensibilities the way Protected- a photo which might not have been taken by anyone else, even if they were walking the same trails- does.

And it doesn't necessarily mean that Rock Garden is a worse photo. But, looking through my galleries, there are photos that I take more pride in than others; because they weren't easy and obvious, and because there's more of myself in them. Protected is one of those; and it happens to be a beautiful picture, too. I say it's my best of 2014.