Created by the Arkansas legislature in 1957, Queen Wilhelmina State Park sits atop Rich Mountain, the second highest point in Arkansas (the highest point in the state being Mount Magazine). My wife, dog and I had never visited the park before, so we decided to make the trip and spend a few days in the park’s lodge.
We arrived in the late afternoon and checked into our room. There was still a good amount of daylight left in the day, so we decided to take a walk around and stretch our legs after the long drive. I also decided to use the walk as an opportunity to do a little scouting to see what kind of photographic subjects I might find when the lighting was better. There were a few things I saw, and I used my phone to capture them to use as a guide for the next day. Returning to our room, we ordered dinner, watched a little TV, and then went to bed in anticipation of a busy day the next day.
When morning arrived, I looked out the window and was astonished by what I saw. Or, more appropriately, what I didn’t see. A thick fog had rolled in overnight, and I couldn’t see more than 25 to 30 yards out. It looked like the world had just disappeared during the night.
We got dressed and ventured out heading toward the same area we had visited the previous evening. This time, I had all my gear with me so I could properly capture some of the scenes I had noticed during our prior walk. I was able to find several of the subjects, but it was virtually impossible to photograph them because the wind was extremely strong. In fact, it was so strong that walking was not always the easiest thing to do.
Finally deciding I wasn’t going to be able to do much in the way of photography, we began making our way back to our room. That’s when I noticed these trees standing in the fog. What I found so striking was the contrast of the dark trunks of the two trees in the foreground, the way the fog seemed to make the background tree seem to just fade away, and how the leaves on the foreground tree added just a touch of color to what was otherwise a very monochromatic scene.
I set up my tripod and began composing the image. Because the two foreground trees were darker and were the more dominant elements, I placed them so they would be equidistant from the edges of the frame. I then decided to place the background tree either on the left or right side of the picture. I didn’t really care as long as it was right in the center. I ended up choosing the right side because shifting my position to move the apparent location of the tree introduced some unwanted background elements, and it would change the relationship of the foreground trees.
Once I had the picture composed as I wanted, I then considered my exposure. Extensive depth of field was unnecessary because the fog was naturally softening the image, so I chose an intermediate aperture of f/11. At ISO 100, this gave me a shutter speed of 1/4 of a second. At first, I was concerned that a shutter speed that slow would cause the leaves to blur because of the wind. But, I decided I wasn’t concerned about blurred leaves given the subject, conditions, and compositions.
Once I had composition established and the exposure setting dialed in, I pressed the shutter button and captured the image.
Processing the image, I strengthened the contrast by lightening the brighter tones and darkening the darker tones. I reduced the texture and clarity of the image to further enhance the general softness of the scene. I reduced the color temperature slightly to give the picture a slightly cooler tone. Adjusting the vibrance and saturation of the colors created subtle, more subdued color, especially in the leaves and grass. Finally, I decided there was too much grass in the foreground that added no value to the overall photo and only served to pull the eye away from the trees. This was resolved rather nicely by cropping this final image to a 16:9 aspect ratio.