Lone Oak Tree #1, Auburn, California

There is an excellent write-up on Black Star Rising, that gave me the idea for this post.

Often, some of our images don’t make the cut for one reason or another, but we hang on to them anyway. 

That was the case with this shot. It was taken years ago with a little 3.0 MP digicam that was given to me. In fact, I took quite a few shots on this camera that I really love, but can’t do much with.

The write-up on Black Star Rising got me to go back and take another look at some of my really old stuff once again.

For years, I wanted a photo of this tree. It stands out like a sore thumb on Foresthill Road, just outside of Auburn. Unfortunately, when I did finally get a shot of it, it was with the wrong camera.

Lone Oak Tree #2, used Poster Edges Filter and increased the saturation.

I decided to play around with this shot in PhotoShop to see what I could come up with. Since the quality of the original isn’t good enough to use for large prints, or most publication purposes, I decided to use my favorite creative filter, Poster Edges, to give it the look of a painting. By doing so, I may be able to at least make a decent print of it. I really like the way it turned out. I have done this with other shots that almost got tossed, such as this one of the deer.

Photo Tip – don’t throw a photo away just because it doesn’t make the final cut. If it has some redeaming quality about it, try a little experimentation.

By the way, I will return to this old Lone Oak Tree in the future with my professional camera. I know that it’s days are numbered and I want to capture a great shot of it before it’s too late!