Figure 1 – Denuded Tree, Wellesley, MA, (c) DE Wolf 2013.

At the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Elm Bank Reservation in Wellesley, Massachusetts there is this wonderful dead tree that is totally devoid of bark that they have labelled and use as a “bird habitat.”  It is wonderfully polished, covered with a labyrinth of termite tunnels, like little streets, and presents this marvelously shiny ivory color.

The sky was completely overcast, presenting a very low contrast light.  But I was struck by the textures, the termite tracks and the spots that glistened subtly above the rest of the surface.  These would not have been there in bright high-contrast sunlight.  The scene presented the kind of tone-on-tone challenge that I just love to photograph.  Since I was shooting with IS, but no tripod, I chose an ISO of 800.  I find that with the Canon T2i you can really go much higher than this without getting into grain trouble.  I experimented with manual but found that AF gave me what I wanted.  I do this by zooming in on the fine detail after taking a test shot.  Here the detail was the termite tracks.  The image in Figure 1 was taken with my EFS 18-55 mm (1:3.5-5.6) IS STM zoom at 37 mm in aperture priority at 1/400.

The result was, I think, my best image of the day.