“December in the Tall Pines”
“All too often we are so focused on cautiously watching our step that we fail to look up and ahead to see the bigger picture right there in front of us.” – Ed Lehming
My hikes and photography are something I really enjoy and every now and then, an image, like this one, will confront me with a perspective to consider.
As I walk through the forests, I spend a lot of time looking down, watching my step, to ensure I don’t trip over a root or uneven ground, more so in the winter. As a photographer, I also spend a lot of my time looking around me, always on the lookout for my next image. However, that focus tends to shift between my footing and my horizontal sightline. Unless I stop and make take in my wider surroundings, they go generally unnoticed as a whole as I tend to focus on specific areas.
It was not till I made this wide angle image that I realized this somewhat unfortunate habit. The wide angle treatment is not something that I expect that I would pursue on a regular basis but it did remind me that all the tighter scenes that I enjoy are part of something larger and beautiful. The wide view is also quite humbling for me because it reveals he vast scale of even a small section of the forest world that I hold so dear.
iPhone 12 Pro @ 1.54 mm
1/1350 sec, f/2.4, ISO 25
Ed Lehming Photography 
I love these types of images, I’m not sure why. To me it seemed images like this, of the tree heights from the ground level, were less popular with others, but I love this perspective!