Here in the Hill Country, playing in the cold-fed rivers is a Texas tradition. At Guadalupe River State Park, there are some very old and intricate cypress trees along the riverbed. Just the tree alone would make a neat photograph, but I wanted to find a little more.
First, the black and white definitely makes the tree stand out more to me. It removes the abundance of green and brown and lets the shapes and textures of the tree take over.
In this frame, you see the huge tree with its roots going all over the ground, curling around and around.
As your eye moves up, you start to see a branch with a curve. You might notice the makeshift swing hanging from the branch over on the left.
Then, between the swing, the curving branch, and the huge tree, there’s a little peek into the river life behind it.
As you study the photograph a little more, you see two boys playing in the water.
I like that the boys in the river are really just a peek in this photograph. This photograph is about this grand old tree, with so many years of stories to tell.
My eye keeps bouncing between the tree, the swing, and the boys. There is definitely some sort of triangulation happening there.
I could have cropped in, but what I found was that the crop made the frame more about the boys and the river. The real star of the show is this giant, beautiful, intricate cypress tree.
The small peek of the boys in the river gives the viewer a hint of all the things this tree has seen along a river that has become part of summer life in Texas.