This is the second in a series of photos I took while visiting family and friends in Lincoln, Nebraska, recently. My wife and I, along with our kids, went for a walk around Holmes Lake with my brother, his wife, and their two dogs on an incredibly foggy afternoon. It’s hard to describe just how oppressive the mist was, but look back to last week’s photo (and keep checking back the next two weeks) to get even the vaguest idea. Suffice to say, it seemed as though a cloud had descended to earth and the eight of us were practically feeling our way through it as we walked the path around the lake. I stopped several times to take photos, such as this one of a thicket of cattails near the southern edge of the lake.
Initially I used my 50mm lens to take a few shots of these fuzzy droplet-covered oddities, but it wasn’t quite giving me the results I was hoping for. There was too much going on in the frame, and with the monochromatic color palette it was difficult to know what to even look at. I carefully, oh so carefully, switched out lenses using my old sling-style camera bag as a makeshift surface on which to make the swap, and once my macro lens was attached and Nifty Fifty was properly stowed I went back for another round of photos.
Suddenly, the hundreds of cattails took on a while new light when seen through my macro lens. I could easily isolate a single fuzzy stick in the frame, and then the only issue became which one to focus on–as well as where to put it in the frame, what aperture to use to get the desired depth of field, what to include in the background, and how to do it all quickly enough that I didn’t get left behind my everyone else as they kept walking. (Full disclosure: I encouraged them to all go on ahead, since I wasn’t sure how much time I would need.) I liked the look of the one you see featured above; it had just the right combination of a fuzzy coat over a thick brown center, whereas the balance in many of the others was off a bit too much for my taste.
I shot this at f/4 which was probably a bit too wide, since the depth of field ended up being slightly shallow for my taste. Though I did get the things in focus that really mattered to me, especially the droplets of condensation on the right-hand side. I tried to position the subject in the frame such that it did not conflict with background elements, and I also liked the vertical lines going through the entire frame–not just the featured cattail, but all the rest of them too. The other little bit that I really like about this is how the top of the stalk doesn’t quite go through the frame. There’s a tiny gap of space right at the very top, which lets the viewer know where this blob of fuzz is positioned on the stalk. It’s a small tough, but one that matters to me :)
Even though this doesn’t convey the same sense of oppressive, overwhelming fog that last week’s photo did, I hope it presents a similar mood despite being a very different composition overall. That was my goal and I’m curious to know what you think too.
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