How deep are your ROOTS? (Careful! watch your step...)

[Heroique]

Often in the field, I trip over these beautiful subjects – Roots.

Indeed, I don’t know why I don’t look down more often. (Never mind my poor sense of balance.) Roots bless my photographic imagination. They crawl around, rise-up, dive down – so much lively movement … then it occurs to me how still they’ve been. :rolleyes:

In the many tree threads here, I’ve seen beautiful shots where roots play a significant role. But how about a fresh thread featuring roots? I feel like I have a lot to see and learn in your examples.

Here’s just one of mine. It’s a trailside Western Hemlock in a Seattle city park. Cushioned by sword ferns, its vertically exposed roots caught my imagination – especially their downward swerves, left and right. A scene with built-in balance, needing only a bit of lens rise to capture…

Toyo 45c
Schneider XL 110mm/5.6
TMax 100 in TMax RS (shot ISO 80)
6 sec. @ f22 (w/ reciprocity correction)
Neutral camera w/ 20mm front rise
Epson 4990

[Leonard Metcalf]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3167/3283088370_2f9b68f3dd_o.jpg
Roots on conglomerate rock at Katherine Gorge in the Top End of Australia
Ebony 45SU, Fujion A 180mm f5.6 HP5, D76, f22 @1/2 second etc...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3156/3282266711_111abfdfb3_o.jpg
Root and three butterflies, Umberwaragh Gorge, Northern Territory
Ebony 45SU, Nikkor M 300mm f8, HP5, D76, f32 @ 10 seconds
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3514/3283088020_b054bd671c_o.jpg
Roots - Tasmania....
hmmm... will have to do some digging to work out the name of the place and see which camera I was using...

Len

[Steve M Hostetter]

"Living on the edge" 4x5" polaroid 250mm Grandagon Imagon wide open @5.8

[Jim Cole]

Here's one taken with a 75mm Nikkor on 4x5 Acros souped in Rodinal

[Vaughn]

Roots -- Shore Acres, Oregon

8x10 platinum/palladium print

[Tori Nelson]

Roots, also from Shore Acres on the Oregon Coast, just a little North of Bandon.
This is an 8x10 contact print.

Tori

[Michael Graves]

The Ozarks of Missouri. 8x10 Arista Ultra. Don't remember the lens.

[drew.saunders]

Tree fall down go boom!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2036/2512000627_8b699a1733.jpg
(larger) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/drew_saunders/2512000627/sizes/o/in/set-72157605183308626/)
Point Lobos. This tree (a redwood I think, can't remember) fell down some time ago. Fallen redwoods often have interesting root systems.

Here's one near the Yosemite falls that's really hanging on to those rocks:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3045/3101357941_69d26739f3.jpg
(larger) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/drew_saunders/3101357941/sizes/o/in/set-72157611038107688/)

[Heroique]

Quote from post #2:
"Roots on conglomerate rock at Katherine Gorge in the Top End of Australia
Ebony 45SU, Fujion A 180mm f5.6 HP5, D76, f22 @1/2 second etc..."

Wow, that 1st photo is the "rooted" movement I was trying to describe (as are the other images posted here). Looks like white-liquid mercury, pouring down, hitting the rock, spreading through the fissures...

(Leonard: Any idea what tree this is? Perhaps native only to Australia?)

[nathanm]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3248/3005306707_467d777cef.jpg

[bvstaples]

Roots in Balboa Park, one of my first root shoots many years ago...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3067/2673781594_656edc3970.jpg

...and a recent shot from a few weeks back.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3463/3233185514_6cfc1475ba.jpg


Brian

[Jim collum]

Betterlight scanning back, Ebony SVTi
R/visual light combination (shot without an IR block filter)

http://www.jcollum.com/fm/2005_10_12_bl_angkor_011-cvt2_filtered.jpg



http://www.jcollum.com/fm/2005_10_12_bl_angkor_017-cvt.jpg
with pano adpater


http://www.jcollum.com/fm/2005_10_12_bl_angkor_015-cvt-poster.jpg
with pano adapter

[zack]

Scan of an 11x14 print on Foma 111.

Ilex Acugon f/32 1/8th on 4x5.
http://zack.loseby.net/images/roots.jpg

[nathanm]

Dang, Jim really DID take a holiday in cambodia! Heh! Those Angkor Wat roots are hard to beat. Looks like something out of a horror movie. They could call it "ROOTS!" er, maybe not.

Zack's shot looks kind of like a spider coming out of the ground.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

Washington coast - 2008

[Filmnut]

Neat stuff folks, I will try to post one of mine, when I get it into the computer. Inspires me to shoot more roots, I looked, but haven't shot a lot of them.
Keith

[Colin Graham]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3329288268_9afb5ab8b5.jpg

[PenGun]

I toasted all my scans but my sig photo is Yew roots in Englishman river. I will rescan it soon.

[sanking]

Guillin, China.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Sandy, knowing that your image is a carbon print makes it special to me. Great range and detail in your image. Nice going.

Here is one of mine. This is on a trail in the Ojai area near me. Shot with my Voigtlander hybrid lens on the 8x10. Wide open. Root with some extra.


Jim

[sanking]

Jim,

Yes, it is a 12X18" carbon transfer print on paper made with a digital negative. The original was a color negative made with the Mamiya 7II and 50mm lens. The print has an incredible amount of detail but the small view does not show it. Prints that have a lot of detail must be seen large to appreciate the quality.

Is it very humid where you live? Those roots look like they are getting a lot of moisture,

Sandy



Sandy, knowing that your image is a carbon print makes it special to me. Great range and detail in your image. Nice going.

Here is one of mine. This is on a trail in the Ojai area near me. Shot with my Voigtlander hybrid lens on the 8x10. Wide open. Root with some extra.


Jim

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Jim,

Yes, it is a 12X18" carbon transfer print on paper made with a digital negative. The original was a color negative made with the Mamiya 7II and 50mm lens. The print has an incredible amount of detail but the small view does not show it. Prints that have a lot of detail must be seen large to appreciate the quality.

Is it very humid where you live? Those roots look like they are getting a lot of moisture,

Sandy

Sandy, yes I live in Southern California about a block from the beach. The shot I posted was taken quite a bit inland and the area gets some heat in the summer. This tree is on what looks to be a trail that is almost always in the shade. I may print it in carbon at some point in time to see how it looks.
I agree about the size thing with carbon prints. The ones I have posted on the various forums are much better in the flesh.

Jim

[Heroique]

Initially, I attached my 240mm lens to frame those battered roots (on left) with the nearby white water.

But then I heard the roots speaking to the big rock (on right):

:( Roots: “My, those spring floods were high. I floated many painful miles to get here.”
:( Rock: “Yes, you took quite a beating – I had to hold my breath under those high waters.”
:o Roots: “We may be older for the wear … but we survived ...”

That’s why I switched my lens to a much wider angle for my final sheet of TMax 100.

Tachi 4x5
Schneider XL 110mm/5.6
½ sec. @ f/22
T-Max 100 (in TMax RS)
Epson 4990

[Chuck Pere]

Here's one from Blackhand Gorge in Ohio.