One rainy day in South Dakota, on the way to see Mount Rushmore, we stopped at a way station with a small scenic lake that was especially mysterious in the fog. Three birch trees were growing along the path against a solid rock ledge. Although I took photographs because I liked the shapes of the trunks, I knew the background was not especially pleasing because the rocks prevented any visual depth. But, I had in mind something I learned in a presentation by one the very talented and innovate members of my camera club, Jerry Berry, who often creates abstracts from his photographs. These tree trunks are my first attempt at one of his Photoshop suggestions. I created a background motion blur from a duplicate layer of the tree trunks and created some depth by shifting the background, then selected the trunks individually and moved them to the top layer. It’s sort of unfinished as my original plan was to add some butterflies flitting among the tree trunks but couldn’t execute that to my satisfaction so I decided to go with just the trunks for now.
