Focus on What Matters

Description

Life moves at a fast pace and you can get caught up in the blur. Take the time to slow down and focus on the parts that truly matter before you miss them completely. 

Story behind the shot:  

This image was captured at Heart Lake in the Adirondacks in the fall of 2021. The lake, named for its shape, has a trail that goes around it but the trail is far enough away from the edge of the lake that you cannot see the actual lake from the trail. There are small paths every 100 meters or so that branch off and lead down to the lake’s edge. The first path down to the lake brought me a wide view of the area. I saw the surrounding mountains popping with color in different pockets. I scanned around the edge of the lake searching for interesting compositions. Along the edge of the far side of the lake, a single vibrant red tree stood out, contrasted by the dark green pines that flanked it. It was at an off angle so the composition wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but I believed it could be something from another offshoot along the lake. I continued my way along the trail getting closer to this area of the lake and continued to walk down each offshoot as I got closer. With each branch I took, I could see what I was looking for start to take shape. Finally I got to the path directly across the lake, providing me the perpendicular view I was searching for. I took out a telephoto lens and focused on getting in close, eliminating other beautiful but distracting parts of the scene. When I got the image home and started working on it in post production and got it to a point that I liked, but didn’t love it so it sat. Life got busy, things came up and the image sat on my hard drive. One day I came back and sat down to look at it again, still having a busy day but I told myself to focus because I wanted to finalize this image. While the vibrant red provided some separation, there was too much detail throughout the frame which I felt was a distraction. Choosing to apply a motion blur to the image and mask out the tree that I wanted to focus accomplished simplifying the scene. It was at this point that the message of this piece was formed as the final result resonated with my own journey to create it. There are times when an artist sets out to create with a message in mind and then there are times when the message presents itself through the process of creating. This result was born from the latter.