“In springtime, the changes happen so quickly, you really need to enjoy things in the moment, and then the moment is gone, till next time.” – Ed Lehming

So far, this spring has offered many surprises, some longer lasting than others, and some, I’m still waiting on. In my many years of hiking the local forest trails, I don’t believe I have seen such a profusion of Red Trilliums, and with the cool temperatures, they seem to have lasted longer and offered me more opportunities to spend time enjoying them and photographing them. This year I even came across a few interesting variations.

I’ve found myself returning to the same spots, checking on the progress of the trilliums I photographed days and even weeks prior. On those visits I’ve had the rare opportunity to re-photograph some of them, in different light or from different angles. Often, I find myself in the midst of the editing process and wishing I had done something slightly different. This year I was able to do just that; return for a second chance at the same shot. Thus the title for this image, “Return to Red“.

I went back with the intention of shooting from a slightly different angle, getting lower to the ground and shooting up. The reality is that when you return to do this kind of thing, conditions have changed: it’s a different time of day, the light is more direct, and the plant itself has continued to grow. Nature is not a static thing and you have to adapt to compensate for this. Fortunately, with years of experience, including many, many failures, you learn what works and what does not. In this case, the light that had been diffused by clouds on my first visit was bright and clear, which makes it more difficult to show red effectively. So, I simply adjusted my angle to take advantage of light reflected from the forest letter as a natural fill. The revisit, that was not as expected, turned out quite nicely after all.

Nikon D800
Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 (272ENII)@90mm
1/160 sec, f/20, ISO 800