Figure 1 – Pine needles, Assabet River Wildlife Refuge, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

This evening I was revisiting some of the photographs that I have taken over the last few months – some processed others not. And I was led by the image of Figure 1 back to a “last of the winter’s snoe” walk that I had taken at the Assabet River Wildlife refuge. This was taken at a spot where the sun catches the needle of the young scrubby pines and they glisten in the light. One always has to remember that photography is about catching the light and, of course, seizing the moment.

So here I took on the challenge of rendering that golden moment into black and white, and I do mean black and white. I would have thought that to capture a warm golden light that I would have resorted to a sepia tine. But this image seemed to cry out for unalterred black and white. This eemed to best capture the the marvelous reflectivity of the pine needles.

Pines, in a sense, seem to defy both time and its seasons. They never shed there leaves and appear the same all year round. But you have only to witness the aged and denuded giant pines of the great blue heron rookery to realize that in the forest change is both wonderful and inevitable. Even the glacial features of the northern woods yield ultimately to these changes.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/800th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.