Trees Series. Stills, 2010...continued

My Trees series is about dormancy, death and decay.

On my walk today I peeked through a hedge and saw this incredible sight -- the rotted, decapitated stump of the once-mighty guardian of the estate partially hidden behind it.

My wide-angle lensing choice exaggerates the distance from the stump to the manor house. I did this in order to accentuate the idea that this sentry (hence "SenTree") is now discarded, forgotten, literally marginalized, robbed of its role and left to decay.

On the way back to my house,  I saw a man and his son tapping a giant sugar maple in their front yard. My interest caught the guy's attention. He motioned for me to come over, and we proceeded to have a delightful conversation about tapping, invasive species, the symbiotic relationship of root fungi to trees, and many other arboresque topics. So, hello there Eric and Eli Olsen...

The light was fading fast, so I started heading home -- hoping perhaps to capture one or two more images before I'd have to hold the shutter open too long to make it feasible to get  an image without a tripod.

Of course, that's when I came across this spectacular, ridged fungal growth on the limb seen here in SymBiosis.  I took several exposures in the darkening light, holding the shutter open longer and longer each time, holding my breath so I didn't shake my trusty camera. After about nine tries, I finally got it in focus with the shallow depth of field you see here. Bingo. ###