Outdoor Photography How To

Lost in the Trees
After years of dreaming about visiting the “wondrous” Boardman Tree Farm in Oregon, Shutterbug reader Vincent James finally made the trip last fall while visiting the Columbia River Gorge. Unable to track down any reliable information online, he wasn’t sure how he was even going to gain official access to the farm.

As luck would have it though, James encountered a gentleman who directed him to the main office to obtain his permit and then he was able to “roam and get lost inside this pleasure dome for about an hour.” While shooting, James was trying to find some “singular unique elements to compose to among the incredible repetition.” He says about this gorgeous shot: “The late afternoon sun began to be visible intermittently, so I waited for an ideal moment to use a hard edge of one of the trees and a small aperture setting to create a sunstar just slightly off-center.”

The shot was captured with a Canon EOS 6D and a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L lens at 28mm, ISO 100, f/22, and 0.6 seconds. Sadly, earlier this year James learned that the Boardman Tree Farm had been sold and all the trees would be cut down. He admits that he now feels “even more blessed to have had the chance to capture a few images of it before it was gone forever.”

To view more of James’s photography, visit vincentjames.net.

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