Greening in January

Image Critiques Weekly Challenge
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Greening in January
Greening in January1500×938 868 KB

This is a bit of the Atlantic White Cedar swamp at Loverens Mill Preserve. Because of the delicate nature of the peat swamp itself, boardwalks are the only way to get into it, and there are more of them here than in other AWC swamps I’d been in in NH. This particular section is probably the most northern edge of the trees’ range. I used to visit this one and two others in Bradford & Manchester, NH, quite often since they are fascinating and oddly beautiful.

I chose this one to share because it was winter and I don’t know how often other people go into bogs and swamps in winter (I have a gorgeous shot of Ponemah Bog in winter, but I’ll save that for another post). Cedars are my second favorite trees and while we have white cedar here, we don’t have Atlantic white cedar (doh! um, yeah). Anyway…I’ll shut up now. You can visit the preserve website here -

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Ideas for improvement welcome.

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No

Probably on a tripod.

image

Lr processed for a 16:10 crop and some color management. Also white & black points, clarity & texture & some lens correction and transform work. A few radial & gradient filters to highlight certain things. Ps to remove some distractions in the far canopy.

@the.wire.smith
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I really like this Kris. The boardwalk is a nice leading line into the scene. The Nature Conservancy is our primary donation charity these days.

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Thanks, @David_Bostock - walkways are a photographer’s friend I think. Although they do limit us in terms of composition, they give us a great lead when we stick to them out of respect for the terrain.

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Kris, this is definitely “swampy” and yes, boardwalks are critical for access unless you like hip waders, deep mud and uncertain footing.

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Thanks @Mark_Seaver - definitely you’d need boots and ones that wouldn’t come off easily, but I’m loathe to enter peat bogs like this because they are so fragile and take so many decades to form. They’re like permafrost in that way.