Charisma
Location: Middle Fork Stanislaus River, Hwy 108, 6 mi. W. of Sonora Pass, California
Created: 07/21/2013 4:47:18 pm
Camera: EOS Canon 7D
Lens: EF24-105 f/4.0L IS @ 28mm
Aperture: f/7.1; HDR 18 x 5 Bracketed Pano; ISO 100
On this stretch of the Stanislaus River just below Monitor Pass, you could feel the energy before getting out of the truck. Walking over a hill, I saw a stunning sight: smooth boulders and a deep, narrow chasm carved by water. Upstream, random logs dammed the river from scattered debris submerged below the water. I set up the tripod, and a timely late summer mid-afternoon Sierra rain shower briefly helped with the lighting. The shot was taken as a vertical 18 shot (6 horizontal and 3 vertical) HDR pano. The 45 images were sewn together in Photoshop to convey this sublime mood. What drew me in was the lime-green tree moss, mostly facing the northern exposures. The abundance of moss seemed surreal. Trees that lack vigor, mainly those already beginning to die back, are often thickly covered in moss. The growth of lichen favors trees that are under stress but is unjustly blamed as the cause for the poor condition of an affected plant. Nonetheless, lichen may not harm the tree but delivers an extra boost of neon, vitality, and ... Charisma.
