In lack of elephants

Sometimes I marvel at panning shots. Trees become smooth, vertical structures without any untidy branches cluttering the lines. Pictures of animals or dragonflies zooming by leave the panned background smooth and palatable.

Trouble is, it doesn't take many such shots before they become boring and repetitious. One notable exception that comes to mind is an article in National Geographic from the mid-nineties. The photographer had combined long shutter speeds with flash to produce, for example, an eerie shot of an elephant charging in the tropical twilight, the flash producing an almost demonic glint in its eyes. I don't have that issue of National Geographic anymore, unfortunately.

In lack of elephants, and mostly any other kind of cooperative wildlife, I decided to make my own first experiments in that direction on trees. Yeah, I know it's hard to get those eyes right that way, but I had something else in mind. I want to create a sort of "ominous-looking fairytale forest". Not quite there yet, but I think the concept looks quite interesting.

Click the image for a larger version.