Over the years, one of my favorite subjects to shoot is the seed pod of a magnolia tree. Everything about them kind of fascinates me from a photographic perspective: in the spring they show up as huge white flowers for just a few days before withering and gently floating to the ground. As summer wears on, the central part of each flower balloons in size as the seeds inside it grow. And when the sun stops shining so brightly as autumn encroaches, the seeds inside each pod emerge like bright red jewels just waiting to get snatched up by birds or falling to the soil in the hopes of one day turning into trees of their own.
And through it all, at each stage of life, these seed pods are super fun to take pictures of. (Apologies for ending the sentence with a preposition; sometimes it’s just easier that way.) Even at the end of their life cycle they have such rich colors and textures that it’s hard to not take a bad picture, and when everything lines up just right it’s really something else. I’m not saying that this picture is among the best I’ve ever taken, but that it’s just a fun example of how these seed pods are so enjoyable and gratifying to capture with a camera. Anywho, what you’ve got here is a magnolia seed pod (obviously) with a few elements that elevate it beyond the mundane. First, the light streaming through a sea of big green leaves in the background gives the whole scene a sense of kinetic energy—though perhaps that’s also due to the incredible wind whipping through the tree as I shot this photo. I used auto ISO with a minimum shutter speed of 1/250 to eliminate motion blur from the subject, not the lens, and even then I had to hold the branch in the foreground with my left hand as I took the picture with my right hand.
One-upping the background light, though, is the backlight on the subject. I specifically sought out an angle from which to shoot the photo that resulted in a bright glow, almost like a halo, around the edge of the seed pod. This backlight, or more accurately, rim light, makes the dull browns spring to life and almost pop out of the frame. I also used a mid-sized aperture of f/6.7 to get a depth of field that was shallow but not too shallow.
All that would be enough for an interesting picture, but there was one other element I was able to use to my advantage which, in my opinion, elevates the shot well beyond many others I have taken: the horizontal branch in the foreground. This was quite intentional on my part, and I am so pleased with how the final composition turned out as a result of this added bit of dimensionality. The image goes beyond my usual single-subject-blurry-background style, and instead contains a sense of depth and presence would otherwise simply not be present. It almost feels like the viewer is peeking into a hidden world, peering through the tree branches as if to gaze upon this seed pod in its final act before succumbing to the forces of nature.
So basically, this was a really fun image to take and makes me excited for what I might be able to capture next time I’m in a similar position :)
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